The Rains Came Down

Yesterday morning the Georgia rain fell particularly hard and fast. I piled Raleigh and Madeline into the backseat, and Choobs sat wide-eyed in her carseat, watching and listening to the pelting rain and thunder. I think they were a little nervous because Madeline said, "Mom, I think we better say a prayer." We did. Then I decided it was time for a rousing song of "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man."

Oh, the rains came down and the floods came up.

The rains came down, and the floods came up.

The rains came down and the floods came up,

And the house on the rock stood still.

I explained to them what it meant to have your house built upon the rock or upon the sand. Building your life upon the teachings of Jesus Christ is like building on the rock.

"What if you kick somebody? Is that building on the rock?"

"Or what if you help set the table for dinner? Is that building on the rock?"

And on and on. Everyone and their mother (literally) was driving to school because of the rain, so this part of the conversation was endless.

Eventually, the girls began coming up with their own examples:

Raleigh: "What if you plant dandelions in your yard? ON PURPOSE??"

Madeline: "What's that? Is that good or bad?"

Raleigh: "DANDELIONS ARE WEEDS!!"

Madeline: "Oh, that's bad."

Dionne: " . . . Yeah. . . . That's bad."

In other news, Dallas spent an entire Saturday a couple of weeks ago helping with the flood cleanup in Austell, Georgia, with the men of our ward here. (I'm glad he wore his old clothes and shoes. I'm thinking about throwing the shoes away.)

He came home covered head-to-toe with something white. I think it was sheetrock debris. His group worked in a cul de sac where they completely gutted a house down to its frame. Nice houses, too. Everything was ruined; everything had to go. They pulled everything out onto the curb for pickup. He said the line of mud where the top of the water came to was eight feet up the wall. I was like, "What happened? How did they get out?" He said they just started swimming! Dallas said he won't ever forget the smell there, and he felt "toxic" when he came home after breathing in who-knows-what. But they were able to do a lot of good and felt happy for the opportunity to serve hands-on.